‘My life was falling apart’: Josh ‘JP’ Patterson opens up about dealing with anxiety and how it took him to the brink

In a raw and deeply personal interview, former Made In Chelsea star Josh Patterson opens up to Kate Thornton on her White Wine Question Time podcast about how he stepped away from the brink of suicide, and why he is committed to helping others.

Read a transcript describing the pause that saved his life, or listen to the full episode below. Josh’s story starts from minute 33.

Josh Patterson: “I’ve got a feeling where I’ve been rejected my entire life. […] ‘Rejected’ in the sense that when my parents broke up – I think anyone who’s gone through what I have, in a broken home – the rejection is the knock-on effect it has.

“All the family friends who used to be in your life that are ultimately almost like a second mother and father no longer want to spend time with you because of what’s happened. Friends you used to have, you can no longer see because they’re [connected]. They’ve got mothers and fathers who are so instrumental in your life no longer speak to you. And I think it was just one thing after another.

“I lost my entire life at a young age. They divorced finally at 13, but they first told us they were going to divorce at 10 or 11, but didn’t. It was pretty full-on. The biggest struggle I had was at school, and I was a bad kid.

“I wasn’t a bad kid because I was born to be bad. I was a bad kid because my life was falling apart. I didn’t know what was going on and I would just be suspended, or I would get told off. At one point they suspended me and I was in a room for a week just looking at the playground.

“Rather than tackling the problem – ‘Well, what’s going on; what’s deeper rooted here?’ – it was black and white. ‘This kid’s bad, let’s stick him in a room on his own’.

“They definitely didn’t [ask how things were at home]. For me it just spiralled out of control.

“My biggest scapegoat and blanket was sport, and I gave everything to sport. And then it got to the point, because I think of my attitude, where I wasn’t being picked for the first team.

“Something as silly as I wasn’t being picked for the long jump, even though I had won them gold every single year. But because I was having a bad year I wouldn’t be selected and for me that was just the biggest rejection of all.

“So there was no value in my life and it progressively got worse and worse, and then eventually my dad gave me an opportunity to go to boarding school in Scotland.

“It was a form of escapism, but the issues were still very much there and I finally had the courage to go and speak to the local doctor.

“He basically said: ‘Listen, you have a really aggressive form of anxiety by the sounds of things.’ I literally ticked everything off the list. He said: ‘What do you think you’re living with here?’

“There were 13 things on the paper and I went, ‘Well, all of them?’

“He went: ‘Son, you’ve got anxiety.’

“And that was it. There was no, ‘What we need to do now is we need to get you to talk to someone’. It was ‘you have anxiety’. I didn’t even know what anxiety was.

“I was really upset and I was sat on a bench and I remember telling a friend – her name was Olivia – and she went, ‘Are you ok?’ and I went, ‘no’, and she went ‘why?’

“‘…Because I’ve got anxiety,” and she went ‘What’s that?’ and I said, ‘I haven’t got a clue’.

“It was only years later where rugby had ended, I didn’t achieve the career I had wanted. My mentality was completely wrong, coaches I gave everything to didn’t support me in the way I had hoped for.

“I remember I was back in Norfolk, I was doing property with my dad, and essentially my life was mapped out for me to do property. But there was no community, no social life, no opportunity to meet a girl. My passion in life is fitness and that had pretty much died.

“It just got to the point where I went, ‘I’m done now. I’ve had enough. I’ve got nothing more I can give to this world. There’s nothing in my life that I find fulfilment in’.

“At this point, I was getting very aggressive. Never with people. I remember smashing my car up, my room. Slight contradiction, but there were times on nights out where if there was somebody in trouble, I would go to protect them knowing full well I would probably get into a physical fight. But again it was a form of release.

“It got to the point where I was sat in my room, I had smashed it up. […] I have a few small scars. And that was it. I don’t know what it was like for you Matt, but…”

Kate Thornton: “You tried to take your life?”

Josh Patterson: “Yeah, that was my choice.

“I didn’t really think about it a great deal, I just knew in that moment I just couldn’t take this any more. I didn’t want to subject anyone to it. And that was the best bet.

“I don’t know what it was but there was something in that moment where I paused, and it was the pause that made me think. And I was going: ‘Hang on a second. If you really want to do this, you would have just done it, so why did you pause?’

“So something internally told me that there is something, that there is a purpose in life.

“I might not know it right now but I’m going to discover it soon. And do you know what? This is why I am so passionate about this, and I will talk about it every minute of every day.

“Some people might not understand it, some may do, but my obsession now is people.”

If you have read this transcript or listened to this episode and need to talk to someone, please call the Samaritans on 08457 90 9090 (UK) or visit www.samaritans.org to find details of the nearest branch. Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, for anyone who is struggling to cope.

You can also visit Mind for help, or to find resources on how to get help for a friend.

Josh Patterson is currently cycling across the UK to raise money for the Royal Marines. To follow his journey, go to his Instagram page. You can help him meet his fundraising target at Just Giving.